As many of you know, I've been playing keyboard at IHOP with Marcus Meier and Tim Reimherr (also known as Merchant Band outside of IHOP) since the fall of 2005. Before playing with Marcus and Tim, I played with Todd Ganovski, who has been serving the vision of a house of prayer in Nashville since 2005.

Marcus and Tim's team has woken up way too early and traveled to so many regional onething conferences, played at countless Sunday services, gone deep in singing the Song of Solomon, and have been wrecked by the drama of the cross of Christ. After being on the team for over 2 and a half years, I've formed friendships with these guys that are just the beginning of the beginning of what the Lord has in store for us for eternity. Sadly, seasons of life shift and change - but one thing can be certain - the Lord's leadership of our lives is perfect.

The Lord sovereignly shifted Marcus to a new leadership role in IHOP, and as a result the entire worship team disbanded and I was not on anyone's worship team for about a week. When Marcus shifted a couple of weeks ago, Tim Reimherr started his own new team with some new fresh musicians and singers (as well as some of those from Marcus' old team), and is still leading some of the 6am sessions in the house of prayer.

Justin Rizzo, another worship leader at IHOP, had asked me to join his team months ago, but I didn't feel like the timing was right. I had set it in my heart to stay steady with Marcus. But the Lord made it clear through some dreams and through Marcus' transition off of full-time worship leading that I was to join up with Justin instead of joining up with Tim's new team. Don't worry, there's absolutely no animosity between anyone, and we're all still great friends and brothers in the Lord. The Lord just made it abundantly clear that things were changing. To say it straight, I'm now playing keyboard with Justin Rizzo full-time. Justin and I were in the same internship together back in 2004 and have been friends since then. I even played for his worship team during the internship, so in some ways it does not feel all that new.

I really have some awesome memories with these guys from Merchant Band - for the first few years, with Shawn, Marcus, Tim, and Steven, and then the last year with Joel and Jordan. Check out a bunch of photos from the past couple years in various albums here. In the style of Shawn Blanc, I decided to write down some unknown facts, inside jokes, and memories I have with Merchant Band:

You may not know...

• Our team has been playing the Tuesday 6am set at IHOP for over 6 years straight (maybe more).
• Steven has had 5 different basses since joining the team (maybe more).
• Jordan had a deer run into his driver's side door on his way to practice for a Sunday morning service. Both the deer and Jordan survived, and he still drives the same car with a nice deer dent in the side. (I am sure you can send him cash to buy a new car!)
• Our old prayer leader, Rose, is now serving the house of prayer in Jerusalem.
• Marcus still has pretty bad coffee breath when he is fasting.
• The Les Paul copy that Marcus always plays is really Tim's guitar, and the Telecaster copy that Tim always plays is really Marcus'.
• Marcus, Tim, and Jordan each have their own distinct style of using their DD5's tap tempo pedal.

I remember...

• Coming off of one of our sets in 2005 on singing through the drama of the cross and uncontrollably weeping in the debriefing. The Lord really met us that set.
• Stereo keys in my in-ear mix at onethings and select conferences, courtesy of Shawn. It's like I'm in a whole different world...
• The last set in the "old" brown-walled prayer room - it was Wednesday 6am in December 2006. There were no chairs in the room for the set, and when we were done it felt so weird to walk around the prayer room with nobody praying in it.
• Leading the 8am set on January 1st, 2007 in the prayer room after we led on stage at onething until midnight. It was awesome!

Inside jokes...

• "Meow meow meow meow..."
• That chorus pulverized my inner man!
• "You're bringing a tom on stage? Oh wait. That's your snare?"
• "Here's your beard, Christ!"
• "Dude, I'm not drinking out of that communion cup. The backwash! Eww!"
• Re-mix. Enough said.
• The boneless cow.

It's been an amazing few years. I've grown so much in my walk with the Lord as we prayed and played together day after day, and for that I am truly thankful. I'm excited to see where the Lord is going to take Tim with his new team and where the Lord is going to take Justin as I run with his team this next season. I'm also really excited to step even more into the realm of prophecy on my music. It's a burden I've been carrying for a while now, and Justin has such a heart for prophetic music and really pushes his musicians to reach for the Holy Spirit during sets in the house of prayer.

If you've got any cool memories of Merchant Band or anything you'd like to add, feel free to comment! (Nobody ever seems to comment on my blog, so if you don't comment I won't lose any sleep over it... heh)